The Tao of Stevie Nicks: 20 Great Quotes From the Bewitching Rock Star
The sheer power of Stevie Nicks‘ voice, one of the biggest, best and most distinctive in all of rock, can sometimes overshadow the brilliance of her lyrics. Whether she’s singing about her tempestuous relationships, Welsh witches or her well-documented history of drug abuse, her songs reflect an affinity for fantastical stories; and even speaking off-the-cuff in interviews, she reveals her natural talent to weave words into gorgeous tapestries.
As the legendary Fleetwood Mac singer turns 70, here are some of her most memorable musings on her career, her destiny and her legacy.
On Fleetwood Mac and her solo career:
“I think it has more to it than just a rock & roll band. For example, everybody’s real interested in the fact that when we walk onstage, Christine is dressed in her trip, and John is wearing cutoffs and a penguin T-shirt with knickers and vest, looking like Ichabod Crane, and Lindsey’s in a suit, and I’m dripping in chiffon. It’s weird. All these people look like they’re going to a different place. There’s no continuity in the five people whatsoever, except the spirit.” –via Rolling Stone (1978)
“I think if I had just done my solo career and had been able just to be me, I probably would’ve been more ego’d out than I was. Being in a group of five really does keep your ego in place. It’s not as easy to get totally conceited when you’re in a band.” –via Spin (1997)
“I was always available to give this another try. In an eerie sort of way it felt as if we had only been apart for a year. Some things you just never forget. [Lindsey’s and my] voice are just as good together and we know it. I love my solo career – don’t get me wrong. But it will never be quite as exciting as Fleetwood Mac. There aren’t very many women who have ever been in a great rock and roll band … limousines and champagne and all that. Every time the five of us are out in public together, people look at us like we’re in a movie, and I feel like we’re in one.” –via Total TV Site/Online (1997)
“I have been so ensconced in being in Fleetwood Mac and being in my own solo work. When I choose for all that to come to an end, then that door will fly open for me. And I will walk into my trailer, and I will, like, fall to my knees on my cushy white rug and look out at the ocean and go, ‘I am finally free. I can now do all of those things that I’ve always wanted to do.'” –via Rolling Stone (2015)
“I feel really blessed to be the Gemini that I am and be able to hop back and forth between my solo career and Fleetwood Mac. My solo career is truly the reason why Fleetwood Mac is still together because I get bored easily.” –via Rolling Stone (2016)
On Lindsey Buckingham:
“When we’re up [onstage] singing songs to each other, we probably say more to each other than we ever would in real life. If you offered me a passionate love affair and you offered me a high-priestess role in a fabulous castle above a cliff where I can just, like, live a very spiritual kind of religious-library-communing-with-the-stars, learning kind of existence, I’m going to go for the high priestess.” –via Rolling Stone (1997)
“Relations with Lindsey are exactly as they have been since we broke up. He and I will always be antagonizing to each other, and we will always do things that will irritate each other, and we really know how to push each other’s buttons. We know exactly what to say when we really want to throw a dagger in. And I think that that’s not different now than it was when we were 20. And I don’t think it will be different when we’re 80.” –via Rolling Stone (2015)
On her fashion sense:
“I’m timeless. I got that Dickensian, London street-urchin look in high school. I’ll never be in style, but I’ll always be different.” –via USA Today (1991)
“Everyone else changes. I don’t change. ” –via The Guardian (1998)
On writing:
“I keep a journal. I’ve written everything down. Someday I’ll have to write a book that really tells everybody what the last 15 years have been like. It’s something I survived.” –via Denver Post (1991)
“What a writer wants to do is put stuff out there and make people mull it over in their minds until suddenly it’s something that’s way more important than turning on the stereo.” –via The Island Ear (1994)
On magic:
“There is always magic to be summoned at any point. I love to live in a world of magic, but not a fake world of magic. We all really basically have a lot of magic … it’s only those of us that choose to accept it that really understand it. It’s there for everyone. That’s the only thing that I feel that I am able to give to people and that’s why I know that they respond to me because I try to give them only their own magic … not mine but theirs.” –via Jim Ladd Interview (1979)
On fear:
“I am pretty fearless. You know why? Because I don’t handle fear very well; I’m not a good terrified person.” –via Grammy.com
On death:
“I’m not afraid of it at all. But I try to get as much done as I can, because you don’t know how long you’re going to be here. That’s why it’s important that I type a page or two every night – even if that’s at 11 a.m. See, I think you live on earth a certain number of times until you finish what it is that you were meant to do here. And then you go on. I don’t think I’ll be back here. I think I’m done.” –via Playboy (1982)
On destiny:
“If you believe in destiny – which I do – it seems like my life was pretty mapped out. It seems almost like there was somebody up there moving the chess players. And I was the white queen, and I just went where I was moved …” –via Us Magazine (1990)
“I believe I was definitely sent down here to take people away for a little while, to make them happy.” –via Musicians in Tune (1992)
“I came here for a reason. I didn’t come here to be a mother. I didn’t come here to be a nun. And I did not come here to be a cleaning lady. I came here to be a poet.” –via Jim Ladd Interview (1979)
On relationships:
“I mean, everybody that I’ve ever gone with in my life – rich rock & roll stars, poor guys that didn’t have a penny, guys in completely other businesses – they finally just look at me and say, ‘I really love you, and if you were ever around, that would continue. But I don’t ever get to see you, and I can’t dig the way that you live. I can’t deal with the jealousy, I can’t deal with the fact that the whole world seems to be more important to you than I am.’ I’ve had many really wonderful relationships, but they always seem to end up in that bag. That’s the saddest part for me, I think. –via Us Magazine (1990)
On her life and legacy:
“I made a choice to not be married and not have children, because I wanted to be a big-time rock & roll star. And people can get mad at me for saying this, but I did not feel that I could do both. I would have been, I think, a great mom, and I would not have put my career first once I had a baby. […] Even in my really bad, drugged-out days, I didn’t go away. I still toured, still did interviews. I never gave up the fight. That’s why I’m who I am today, because I didn’t leave. And I think I made the right choice.” –via Rolling Stone (2002)
“All those little songs, all that pain I went through – it got me here. I look around me now – I’m in my little house right now, looking out at the beautiful ocean, picturing my dad leaning against the wall over there like a ghost, saying, “Do you realize what a lucky girl you are?” I’m lucky that my favorite evening is still going to a grand piano in a beautiful room with incense and candles and sitting down to write a song for the world.” –via Rolling Stone (2014)